


Dreamcatcher

by HazelBeka



Series: 101 Uses for a Barrier Seal [13]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Childhood Friends, Found Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Kid Fic, Nightmares, baby seals master Iruka
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-16
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-25 09:34:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30087081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HazelBeka/pseuds/HazelBeka
Summary: After Kakashi’s father dies, he’s adopted into the Umino household. When nine-year-old Kakashi wakes in the night from bad dreams, Iruka is there to make him feel safe again.
Relationships: Hatake Kakashi & Umino Iruka, Hatake Kakashi/Umino Iruka
Series: 101 Uses for a Barrier Seal [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/373676
Comments: 37
Kudos: 180





	Dreamcatcher

Kakashi leapt out of the bed before he was fully awake. It took him a moment to make sense of the darkness and remember where he was. Recognition didn’t slow the pounding of his heart, but he lowered his arms from their guard and relaxed out of his battle-ready pose. The night was quiet, the summer air warm, but the echoes of the dream still painted the bedroom walls with his father’s blood. It had long been scrubbed off the walls in another room, in another house, but no matter how Kakashi had tried, he couldn’t scrub it from his memory. And God, he had tried.

He sat back on the bed and rubbed a hand over his eyes and through his hair. When he heard a scuffle through the wall, he tensed, and then sighed as he heard the soft click of a door and the quiet pad of footsteps taking the three short steps down the hallway to his room.

Iruka opened the door without knocking. His hair was loose and messy from sleep, and he was wearing his pyjamas with the paw prints on them. They always gave Kakashi the mental image of Iruka sleeping in a pile of ninken; a welcome image that softened the nightmare’s blow.

“Did you have the bad dream again?” Iruka asked, his words slurring together in a sleepy way that brought Kakashi a second wave of comfort.

He didn’t know what it was about Iruka that made him feel better after the nightmares. He had never told Iruka about them, of course, or in no more detail than to say he sometimes dreamt about his dad, who Iruka knew had died but not the how or the why. Sometimes Kakashi lay awake in the night and tried to remember a time when he’d been too young to truly understand what death was, to imagine how it felt for Iruka, who was only six years old and had never seen anyone die. Sometimes he was jealous, but in moments like these he cherished that innocence, and he’d be damned if he was the one to rip it away.

“Yeah,” he said. “But I’m OK. Sorry I woke you up.”

Iruka closed the door and crossed the room. As he reached the bed, Kakashi realised he’d brought his stuffed toy with him: a black cat called Soot, who Iruka dropped in Kakashi’s lap as he sat on the bed beside Kakashi, his legs dangling over the edge. Kakashi carefully arranged Soot so he was sitting with his tail curled around him, and was treated to Iruka’s smile.

“You have lots of bad dreams,” Iruka said.

“Sorry.”

“It’s OK.” Iruka yawned, jaw-crackingly wide, only remembering to cover his mouth when it was already over. “Do you want me to read you a story?”

Kakashi had never had a younger sibling, and he didn’t quite think of Iruka that way, but sometimes Iruka said things that made him feel less alone in the world.

“No. You should go back to bed. You’ll fall asleep in school tomorrow.”

“No I won’t,” Iruka said, even though that was exactly what had happened the last time Kakashi had woken him up. “When I have a bad dream, Mummy or Daddy always stays with me until I fall asleep again so they can chase away the nightmares. So I have to stay with you until you fall asleep.”

“You can’t chase nightmares,” Kakashi said doubtfully. “They’re inside your head.”

“They come and get you,” Iruka insisted. “Mummy said she used to have a little net to catch them in, with feathers and beads and things, and she hung it next to her bed so all the bad dreams would get tangled up in it before they reached her.”

Kakashi had never heard of such a thing. He pictured it like a butterfly net, propped up beside Kohari’s bed, although he wasn’t sure where the feathers came in.

“Do they work?” he asked.

Iruka nodded. “Yeah! She said she was gonna make me one. I bet she’d make you one too!”

She would, Kakashi knew. Iruka’s parents had given him so many things since he’d moved in with them. He felt bad about it.

“If you can catch nightmares, do you think there’s a jutsu or something that can fight them?” he wondered out loud.

Iruka hummed as he considered this.

“Maybe,” he said. “Or you could build a trap or…” He cut himself off with a little gasp and his mouth formed a round o. “I know what to do!” he said, forgetting to whisper in his excitement, and Kakashi shushed him. “Wait here!”

He scrambled off the bed and hurried out of the room, leaving Kakashi with Soot on his lap, listening for any sign that Iruka’s parents had woken up. All he could hear was Iruka rummaging around in the next room. Kakashi waited patiently until he came back, waving something that Kakashi couldn’t make out in the gloom.

“What’s that?” he asked, curious despite himself as Iruka bounced back onto the bed.

“It’s a seal,” Iruka said, presenting it to Kakashi proudly. “The one I’ve been practising with in school.”

It was a barrier seal. It was too dark for Kakashi to make out the symbols inked on the slip of paper, but he’d seen Iruka using it with his mother as part of his homework. Kakashi couldn’t remember how he’d first learnt to control his chakra; he’d developed early and he’d skipped the first two years of school, having learnt the basics around the same time he’d learnt to walk. Apparently they didn’t teach normal kids to use jutsu before they could read. They eased them into it slowly with chakra control, first giving them harmless seals to activate, so by the time they moved onto jutsu they wouldn’t almost lose a hand the first time they moulded chakra.

“What are you going to do with that?” Kakashi asked.

“If any nightmares come, I’ll catch them in a barrier,” Iruka told him. “Then you’ll be safe!”

Kakashi didn’t know how to react to that. It was laughable that Iruka – so small, so weak – could protect him from anything, let alone the memories that haunted him at night. And yet. All his life, Kakashi had been trained to be self-sufficient. To be powerful enough to look after himself, to take care of his teammates, and one day, his father had told him, he could be one of the strongest shinobi in the village. He had always felt the weight of that responsibility. During all those lessons he had forgotten – or perhaps he had never known – how it felt to be the one protected. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had told him they would keep him safe.

“Kakashi?” He’d been quiet for too long, and he wasn’t sure what his face was doing, but Iruka was watching him with concern.

“Thanks, Iruka,” he forced out. “I’m sure you’ll catch all the bad dreams.”

Iruka’s smile came back. Even in the darkness, it shone like the sun.

“I will,” he promised. “But that means I’ve gotta sleep here with you so I can get them when they come sneaking in.”

“Sure.” Kakashi had let Iruka sleep in his bed once before when Iruka had had a nightmare of his own and come in crying. It hadn’t been so bad, though if Iruka kept him awake, well, at least he wouldn’t have any more bad dreams.

He got back under the covers and Iruka wriggled in beside him, still holding the barrier seal. Something fluffy pressed against Kakashi’s neck, and he found Soot nuzzling up against him, courtesy of Iruka.

“You should hug him,” Iruka instructed. “Soot will protect you too.”

Kakashi tentatively hugged the cat to his chest. He knew he was too old for toys – or, at least, everyone told him he was – but it felt nice to have something to hold. Iruka reached up and stroked Kakashi’s hair, and Kakashi closed his eyes and let him. His father had stroked his hair sometimes, his hand so much bigger than Iruka’s, and Kakashi missed him. He missed him desperately.

Iruka yawned and snuggled closer, his presence warm and soothing. The barrier seal lay on the pillow between them, Iruka’s hand resting over it, though he was struggling to keep his eyes open. His fingers faltered in Kakashi’s hair, and then his arm fell across Kakashi’s shoulders and in another moment he was asleep.

Kakashi lay and listened to him breathe. He was still afraid to let himself relax in case the dreams came back. The last thing he wanted was to lash out in his sleep now Iruka was here, and it wasn’t like that slip of paper could really protect him. Could it?

The barrier seal crinkled as he pressed a finger to the paper, careful not to disturb Iruka. Then he pushed a little chakra into it, and a barrier materialised around the bed. Iruka stirred but didn’t wake, his arm twitching around Kakashi as if trying to hold him tighter. Kakashi gazed at the barrier, not sure if it would truly keep the nightmares out. Its presence made him feel better though. Iruka had brought it here to protect him, and that meant something, whether it worked or not.

Slowly, Kakashi relaxed. The night was still dark, and his father was still dead, but those things could be kept at bay. Maybe not forever, maybe not even until the morning, but right now he could keep the pain beyond the barrier’s walls. Inside this safe space Iruka had gifted him, he could sleep peacefully for a time. While Iruka was here with him, he would never be alone with his thoughts.

He curled around Iruka a little more and closed his eyes, and even after he drifted into sleep, the barrier remained a solid presence around them long into the quiet of the night.

**Author's Note:**

> And then they grow up and fall in love and Iruka is always there to hold him when the nightmares wake him up.


End file.
